The power of simply connecting

Why you need to get out more

About thirty years ago, my hometown, Sydney, built a monorail. It was revolutionary at the time. It connected the city to museums, an exhibition centre and a few tourist spots. Trouble was, it didn’t connect to anything else. The city’s main rail terminal was a kilometre away from the nearest stop. Nor did it venture downtown. 

Sydney is harbour city. Tourists want to go the Harbour Bridge, the Opera House and their associated ranks of bars and restaurants. They’re all at Circular Quay, where trains, buses and ferries collide in a transport hub. It was easy to get there from anywhere, except by monorail. 

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The best thing about equilibrium? We're never there.

You're better off being here 

Equilibrium is embedded in the human psyche. Lurking behind science, culture and our daily lives is the idea that there can be a place where everything is in balance. 

In economics, it’s where demand equals supply. In physics, it’s where opposite forces cancel each other out. It is everywhere. Click here to watch Russell Crowe apply the Nash Equilibrium to speed dating. 

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Go ahead, disrupt yourself

Converting anxiety to action

Disruption is a big word. It impacts different people in different ways. Some see it as an opportunity; others a threat. 

Yet both responses are a source of anxiety. Big shifts in the commercial environment change whole industries, and eventually whole economies. With the internet, the shift can go global. Our business, our jobs, our lives: they are all affected.

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Choosing ideas that get traction

Why a marriage of convenience works

The test of any innovation is convenience. Does it make things easier? There are lots of inventions but few successes. Some are inspiring in their technical wizardry; others are aesthetically pleasing or inexpensive to produce. But they don’t get traction unless they make things more convenient.

For innovation to succeed, it has to mobilise either latent demand or latent supply, or both, and bring them together in a convenient package.

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So what if there's a recession

Coping with cyclical inevitability. 

Forecasts of recession are common this time of the year. Trawl through the financial press and you’ll see all sorts of gloomy predictions. Most will be wrong. Forecasters don’t have a great track record. Research shows barely 15% of them will get it right. 

Should we worry?

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